Two nights later, I was a basket case. I made sure to dress in my nerdiest top, and I didn’t do my hair well. I was hoping not to come across as intimidating or polished. I knew I could sometimes be both. I had spent all day walking around in a daze thinking about fourth grade.

It was snowing outside when I walked up the pathway to the rav’s house. I didn’t blush often, but when his wife answered the door, I blushed. Did she also know that I was the demon in the story? I stamped my boots and traced the pattern on the rug.

The rav greeted me. I’ve heard such great things about him and knew how many girls admired him. Could be I was wrong, but he looked at me like I’d been a bully, a fiendish girl who thrived on torturing others.

Finally, Tzippy walked in. I didn’t recognize her. Behind the thick shadow and lashes were two deep pools of pain mixed with hatred. It was scary to sit so close to someone who hated me so much.

The rav spoke about the power of forgiveness, and then he left us alone.

It was the most painful meeting I ever attended.

I’ve always wondered how one measures bottomless, but now I knew. The misery, the pain, the sheer agony of a tortured soul all pointed to a very, very deep pit. And I was to blame.

I started crying. I asked her again and again what I did. I made myself vulnerable, shared all my personal failures, but… nothing, she couldn’t tell me what I did. She just spoke and spoke of all the pain in her heart.

Then I told her how much I admired her for befriending the underprivileged girl. That did it.

“You know why I did it? Not for her. For me. I didn’t have anybody else to speak to!” she spat. “I was a nobody. And my mother… she’s just sweet. Also a bit of a nobody. I was just the good girl. The eidel girl with the eidel mother who had no one to stick up for me. I was the girl who was just part of choir and who got no mention at graduation.”

So it had nothing to do with fourth grade.

It had everything to do with falling between the cracks.

Gently, I asked for forgiveness. I begged her to understand that not everything is the way it seems. She then said that every time she saw me on the street she felt like Simmy from the Yaffa Ganz books. I was on the glamorous side of the boulevard. Apparently, Simmy’s side of the boulevard had many, many cracks.

At a certain point, the rav asked if we were done. I shook my head. I had to hear how it felt being on that side of the street.

She told me how the first time she was noticed was when she first broke a rule. It felt good. For a moment, she wasn’t in the cracks. So she did it again and again and again. Until, she wasn’t part of the cracks anymore. Until there were so many mechanchos and therapists looking at her. But she wasn’t happy.

And it was all because of me.

She looked at me as the polar opposite of her. To her, my easy popularity was hard to fathom. Her mother was such a nice, kind lady. But she had failed to notice how sad her daughter was. And sadness that festers for so many years grows huge and ugly.

We parted that night with a hug. I hoped I’d helped her out of the pit, but she was too far in. Over the next few years, I watched the crocodile teeth of drugs and pain eat her up.

Today, I don’t know where she is. I’ve heard many rumors and I hope none of them are true.

A while later, the rav called to apologize. He said that as she talked more, he realized I hadn’t done anything wrong. It didn’t really calm me down, though. I felt horrible. Every time I thought of her eyes, I imagined them staring at me through the wallpaper. I thought of all my students with eyes in the wallpaper.

The weight of those eyes tortured me for the next few weeks.

My shidduch was redt only two weeks after the meeting, and I got engaged shortly after that. Tzippy must have heard somehow, because she got me a gorgeous gift. I never used it. I tried. But her blue eyes peeked through the crystal decanter.

With hindsight, I realize that she was psychologically unstable, and her thoughts didn’t mirror reality. But still, I ached for her.

So when a mother of a student called me last week and told me that her daughter felt like a piece of furniture until I read out her writing to the entire class, I smiled and thought of Tzippy.

Tzippy, that’s a zechus for you.

When the graduation director asked me about solos, I told her about a different girl who could use a solo. The girl’s glowing face at graduation is a zechus for Tzippy.

But there are so many girls who still look like Tzippy. And yes, there are girls like me, too. It’s not their fault that they’re talented, and of course they should shine. But if there’s one girl that feels like an extinguished light while another girl has the crystals of her glowing chandelier polished again and again, it’s not enough to tell the girls that roles in the school performance are bashert.

No, life isn’t fair, but it’s not our job as teachers and mechanchos to be the ones to ensure that this rule is enforced.

Tzippy, as I mark the last of my midterm tests and try to give an honest, personal compliment to a good, average, somewhat shy girl, I think of you.

I don’t know where you are. I’m not capable or trained to help you. But I hope the smile I put on this girl’s face will be the final zechus to help you out of the deep cracks.

(Originally feature in Family First, Issue 525)